A sophisticated cyberattack targeted The Washington Post in an operation that resembled intrusions against other major American news organizations and that company officials suspect was the work of Chinese hackers, people familiar with the incident said.

“Like other companies in the news recently, we face cybersecurity threats,” Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti said. “In this case, we worked with [security company] Mandiant to detect, investigate, and remediate the situation promptly at the end of 2011. We have a number of security measures in place to guard against cyberattacks on an ongoing basis.”

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported this week on major hacking campaigns they said likely originated in China.